We greatly value our ongoing relationship with our global cold chain partner Cool Runnings International, a global solutions provider for cold storage and refrigeration systems. We have similar core values and similar business approaches because we have a lot in common with how we conduct our businesses, spread across the globe as each one is.
One of our key common principles is that you won’t provide good solutions from your desk. You have to be in the room, the store, the distribution center to provide the right answers for your clients.
Global Cold Chain Video Discussion
We recently produced a video of a business conversation between our President, Michael Lassner, and the CEO and President of Cool Runnings, Bill Harms, in which they discussed some of the business dynamics both companies are seeing currently across the world, and what people might learn from them. You can watch the video here:
Supply Chain Disruptions
The current state is that a majority of long-lead time items that are critical to the function of entire projects are difficult or impossible to find. To solve the problems that causes, it’s critical to find the weakest link in the supply chain, especially for critical components, and identify alternative sources. Another solution is alternative systems entirely–for example, if a critical computer chip isn’t available for electronic controls, you might go back to old-school mechanical solutions.
Pre-pandemic, the logistics world had a real-time supply chain rhythm to it. Covid-19 rocked that, and it still hasn’t come back. Companies are shifting to securing their own goods and products for delivery.
For the cold chain in particular, it came into the pandemic already with a shortage in cold storage. That hasn’t changed.
Food Waste
A big problem we see in the cold chain is the huge waste of product, farm to port. Goods are rotting in the fields, and there’s waste and spoilage in delivery to supermarkets, and in the supermarkets themselves. It varies by markets; emerging markets have no cold chain (as in many parts of Africa, for example). There, produce moves from the farm straight to the market in a single day, and by end of the day it’s animal feed. One of the biggest opportunities to help with that, that we solutions providers in the developed world might do is scatter cold storage throughout that market, and help reduce that waste. With the steady growth of population, and the continuing need to reduce hunger, there are huge opportunities here for companies like Cool Runnings and Allied Steel Buildings.
Solutions and Opportunities
We’re seeing companies going vertical with their distribution systems while they take production, especially for food, local. The trend in both the developed and developing worlds is farm-to-fork, cutting out the distribution portion of the supply chain, supported by online shopping. That’s more prevalent in the developed world, but Amazon is investing $4 billion on a new headquarters in southern Africa.
The paths to growth for companies like ours in providing these solutions is organically, through existing customer base, plus referrals, adding to our base business.
Both Allied Steel Buildings and Cool Runnings International provide solutions custom-tailored to the client’s needs. It’s about delivering what’s required for the client to achieve its goals. We have common values like innovation and moral integrity. It’s why we have worked, and will continue to work, so well together.
